/ Financial / EPA Awards Millions in Grants to Ports, Transit Operations, Others to Cut Diesel Emissions

EPA Awards Millions in Grants to Ports, Transit Operations, Others to Cut Diesel Emissions

Parul Dubey on February 26, 2018 - in Financial, News

The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded millions of dollars in grants this month to ports, transit operators and other agencies across the country to help remove old diesel engines from heavy trucks, buses, ferries and other transportation equipment to replace them with cleaner-burning, newer models.

The awards included more than $2.6 million to reduce emissions from cargo trucks and ferries in the New York City area, most of that going to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to help replace short-haul trucks of model year 2006 and older with models from 2012 and newer. The rest will go to help replace old engines on marine ferries.

The EPA approved nearly $1 million for a program in Puerto Rico to replace old heavy-duty, short-haul trucks with 2012 or newer models and to retrofit heavy-duty diesel trucks owned by local private and independent transportation companies in the San Juan Port area.

It spread almost $2 million among three Ohio agencies including the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority. The grants and local matching funds will go to replace harbor tugboats, buy hydrogen fuel cell paratransit buses to replace older-model buses, replace refuse-hauling trucks for a waste company and terminal tractors for a distribution center.

In Chicago, the EPA is distributing $1.04 million. The city’s Department of Aviation will use $640,000 from the EPA and a larger local match “to replace 26 older, dirtier pieces of airport support equipment” at O’Hare airport with all-electric versions. The Chicago Transit Authority will use a $400,000 EPA grant and more of its own funds to replace an old diesel bus with an all-electric model.

And it is disbursing about $1.3 million to sponsoring agencies in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Idaho to help retrofit or replace a wide range of transportation equipment. The funds will help replace marine engines in Alaska, replace and retrofit school buses and construction trucks in Idaho, school buses in Oregon, and both buses and a harbor patrol marine engine in Washington.

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